Long my heart has hearkened, hanging on thy clamorous ominous cry, 1480 Fain yet fearful of the knowledge whence it looks to live or die; Now to take the perfect presage of thy dark and sidelong flight Comes a surer soothsayer sorrowing, sable-stoled as birds of night.
Man, what thy mother bare thee born to say Speak; for no word yet wavering on thy lip Can wound me worse than thought forestalls or fear.
I have no will to weave too fine or far, O queen, the weft of sweet with bitter speech, Bright words with darkling; but the brief truth shown Shall plead my pardon for a lingering tongue, 1490 Loth yet to strike hope through the heart and slay. The sun's light still was lordly housed in heaven When the twain fronts of war encountering smote First fire out of the battle; but not long Had the fresh wave of windy fight begun Heaving, and all the surge of swords to sway, When timeless night laid hold of heaven, and took With its great gorge the noon as in a gulf, Strangled; and thicker than the shrill-winged shafts Flew the fleet lightnings, held in chase through heaven 1500 By headlong heat of thunders on their trail Loosed as on quest of quarry; that our host Smit with sick presage of some wrathful God Quailed, but the foe as from one iron throat With one great sheer sole thousand-throated cry Shook earth, heart-staggered from their shout, and clove The eyeless hollow of heaven; and breached therewith As with an onset of strength-shattering sound The rent vault of the roaring noon of night From her throned seat of usurpation rang 1510 Reverberate answer; such response there pealed As though the tide's charge of a storming sea Had burst the sky's wall, and made broad a breach In the ambient girth and bastion flanked with stars Guarding the fortress of the Gods, and all Crashed now together on ruin; and through that cry And higher above it ceasing one man's note Tore its way like a trumpet: _Charge, make end, Charge, halt not, strike, rend up their strength by the roots, Strike, break them, make your birthright's promise sure, 1520 Show your hearts hardier than the fenced land breeds And souls breathed in you from no spirit of earth, Sons of the sea's waves_; and all ears that heard Rang with that fiery cry, that the fine air Thereat was fired, and kindling filled the plain Full of that fierce and trumpet-quenching breath That spake the clarions silent; no glad song For folk to hear that wist how dire a God Begat this peril to them, what strong race Fathered the sea-born tongue that sang them death, 1530 Threatening; so raged through the red foam of fight Poseidon's son Eumolpus; and the war Quailed round him coming, and our side bore back, As a stream thwarted by the wind and sea That meet it midway mouth to mouth, and beat The flood back of its issue; but the king Shouted against them, crying, _O Father-God, Source of the God my father, from thine hand Send me what end seems good now in thy sight, But death from mine to this man_; and the word 1540 Quick on his lips yet like a blast of fire Blew them together; and round its lords that met Paused all the reeling battle; two main waves Meeting, one hurled sheer from the sea-wall back That shocks it sideways, one right in from sea Charging, that full in face takes at one blow That whole recoil and ruin, with less fear Startle men's eyes late shipwrecked; for a breath Crest fronting crest hung, wave to wave rose poised, Then clashed, breaker to breaker; cloud with cloud 1550 In heaven, chariot with chariot closed on earth, One fourfold flash and thunder; yet a breath, And with the king's spear through his red heart's root Driven, like a rock split from its hill-side, fell Hurled under his own horsehoofs dead on earth The sea-beast that made war on earth from sea, Dumb, with no shrill note left of storming song, Eumolpus; and his whole host with one stroke Spear-stricken through its dense deep iron heart Fell hurtling from us, and in fierce recoil 1560 Drew seaward as with one wide wail of waves, Resorbed with reluctation; such a groan Rose from the fluctuant refluence of its ranks, Sucked sullen back and strengthless; but scarce yet The steeds had sprung and wheels had bruised their lord Fallen, when from highest height of the sundering heaven The Father for his brother's son's sake slain Sent a sheer shaft of lightning writhen and smote Right on his son's son's forehead, that unhelmed Shone like the star that shines down storm, and gave 1570 Light to men's eyes that saw thy lord their king Stand and take breath from battle; then too soon Saw sink down as a sunset in sea-mist The high bright head that here in van of the earth Rose like a headland, and through storm and night Took all the sea's wrath on it; and now dead They bring thee back by war-forsaken